Your Clients Need Backup and Recovery for Office 365 Data

Microsoft provides some built-in protection as part of the hosted Office 365 service. Its SLA with its customers guarantees 99.9 percent uptime. But that doesn’t mean businesses shouldn’t have a data backup and recovery plan for all of their Office 365 files.

It’s an Office 365 world after all. With 60 million commercial customers currently using Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity suite, Office 365 has gained a lot of traction since its introduction in 2011.

The suite, which includes the popular Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications, lets users perform all of the same tasks as the on-premise version of Office, and more. Office 365 also includes cloud storage on Microsoft’s OneDrive and hosted versions of Skype, SharePoint and Exchange for businesses.

Just like any on-premise IT asset, businesses need to protect the data in their cloud-based applications. However, users assume that if the data is in a cloud application, you don’t need to back it up. But that’s not always so.

In the case of Office 365, Microsoft provides some built-in protection as part of the hosted service. Its service level agreement (SLA) with its customers guarantees 99.9 percent uptime.

But that doesn’t mean businesses shouldn’t have a data backup and recovery plan for all of their Office 365 files. Even though the built-in protection is undeniably valuable – and necessary – it doesn’t prevent users from making mistakes.

And that’s where you as the MSP come into this picture. For customers with Office 365 implementations, you need to provide a data backup and recovery solution that specifically handles Excel, Word, PowerPoint, email and any other files associated with Microsoft’s online productivity suite.

Potential Scenarios

There are several scenarios involving user error that make a backup and recovery solution for Office 365 necessary. Let’s say an employee is working on a Word document or building an Excel sheet, and deletes the file by mistake before saving it, then distractedly closes the application. You lose this file forever, unless you have a backup and recovery solution.

Another scenario involves intentional destruction of files. This could happen as a result of a disgruntled employee who wants to hurt the company or a successful network breach by a hacker. In either case, any destroyed or modified files could be impossible to recover.

Consider, for instance, the thousands of businesses that in recent years have fallen victim to ransomware attacks. Unless the files encrypted by the ransomware have been dutifully copied and stored for safekeeping, companies lose that data or – as many agree to do – pay ransom to recover them.

These are real-world scenarios that could happen to any of your customers at any time. The question then is whether you are prepared to help them recover, should they experience such a scenario.

StorageCraft Solution

StorageCraft, the backup and recovery leader, has a data backup and recovery solution specifically tailored to Office 365 deployments. Cloud Backup for Office 365 protects Exchange files, calendars and contacts, OneDrive, SharePoint and public shared folders. Whether your clients are large companies with multiple locations and telecommuters or SMBs, StorageCraft Cloud Backup can handle their needs.

Backup up data is compressed and encrypted in Tier 3+ certified datacenters. The solution automatically identifies and backs up additions or changes to data without manual intervention. When necessary, data is restored exactly as it was. There’s no need to recreate functions and settings.

For MSPs, managing the solution is easy. All you do is monitor the accounts, except when you have to add or remove users – or when a restore is necessary. StorageCraft Cloud Backup provides the protection MSPs’ clients need for their Office 365 investments.

Marvin Blough is StorageCraft's Vice President of Worldwide Sales, where his focus is on expanding the company's global reach by establishing channel partnerships that enhance profitability for the channel partner.

Guest blogs such as this one are published monthly and are part of MSPmentor's annual platinum sponsorship.

Discuss this Blog Entry 1

D.McBride (not verified)

on Apr 25, 2017

My boss told me to do research on some Office 365 mailbox backup solutions, mainly CodeTwo, Cloudally, CloudBacko, Spanning, etc. They all seem okay, except their prices vary a lot. Care to share your experience in any of them? Or any comparison between StorrageCraft with any of them? Much appreciated :-D